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Attempting to Quantify Bowl Results by Conference

A different approach to assessing conference bowl performance.

NCAA Football: Fiesta Bowl-Ohio State vs Clemson Matthew Emmons-USA TODAY Sports

We did this last year. Nothing has really changed, so I’ll quote in relevant portion below.

One of college football's favorite pastimes is reaching knee-jerk conclusions once bowl season is over. One additional data point after a season of 12 (or 13) games, in games that are glorified exhibitions featuring teams with varying levels of interest and motivation, some of whom have coaching staffs in flux, are REALLY IMPORTANT Y'ALL.

Sorry. Rant over.

Most attempts at assessing overall conference bowl performance are little more than a comparison of overall conference record, with an ad-hoc look at specific matchups that support the chosen narrative. Conferences with better overall records are anointed as superior.

Of course, this assumes uniformity in bowl matchups, which doesn't exist. This mindset stems from the days when there were only a handful of bowls pitting one of the top two teams from each major conference. Hello, early 1990s Orange Bowls. And mindless football fan/media groupthink.

Today's bowls often feature teams with sharply different season performances. ... On closer inspection, specifically using F/+ rankings which attempt to evaluate play-by-play performance and ignore uncontrollable variables such as the vagaries of bounces and other luck associated with a violent game played at high speeds by young men throwing and carrying an oddly shaped ball, we often find great disparity in the matchups when better metrics are employed.

The charts below show each conference's bowl matchups with F/+ rankings, results, and a column assessing the result. A win where a win was expected by F/+ is a zero; a positive one means the conference's team won a matchup where it was the underdog, and a negative one means the opposite.

Untitled

Conference Win/Loss School F/+ Rank Opponent Opp. F/+ Rank Conference +/-
Conference Win/Loss School F/+ Rank Opponent Opp. F/+ Rank Conference +/-
Big 12 W Baylor 73 Boise State 15 1
Big 12 L West Virginia 52 Miami 13 0
Big 12 W K-State 38 Texas A&M 19 1
Big 12 W Oklahoma State 29 Colorado 17 1
Big 12 L TCU 44 Georgia 66 -1
Big 12 W Oklahoma 10 Auburn 11 0
SEC W Mississippi State 55 Miami (OH) 78 0
SEC L Vanderbilt 75 NC State 28 0
SEC L Texas A&M 19 K-State 38 -1
SEC L South Carolina 93 South Florida 39 0
SEC L Arkansas 53 Virginia Tech 24 0
SEC W Georgia 66 TCU 44 1
SEC W Tennessee 43 Nebraska 34 1
SEC W LSU 5 Louisville 7 0
SEC L Kentucky 59 Georgia Tech 50 0
SEC W Alabama 1 Washington 6 0
SEC W Florida 42 Iowa 20 1
SEC L Auburn 11 Oklahoma 10 0
ACC W Boston College 88 Maryland 87 1
ACC W NC State 28 Vanderbilt 75 0
ACC W Wake Forest 72 Temple 18 1
ACC L Pitt 26 Northwestern 49 -1
ACC W Miami 13 West Virginia 52 0
ACC W Virginia Tech 24 Arkansas 53 0
ACC L North Carolina 22 Stanford 21 0
ACC W Florida State 9 Michigan 2 1
ACC L Louisville 7 LSU 5 0
ACC W Georgia Tech 50 Kentucky 59 0
ACC W Clemson 4 Ohio State 3 1
Big 10 L Maryland 87 Boston College 88 -1
Big 10 W Minnesota 37 Washington State 33 1
Big 10 W Northwestern 49 Pitt 26 1
Big 10 L Indiana 48 Utah 40 0
Big 10 L Nebraska 34 Tennessee 43 -1
Big 10 L Michigan 2 Florida State 9 -1
Big 10 L Ohio State 3 Clemson 4 1
Big 10 W Wisconsin 16 W. Michigan 36 0
Big 10 L Iowa 20 Florida 42 -1
Big 10 L Penn State 12 USC 8 0
Pac-12 L Washington State 33 Minnesota 37 -1
Pac-12 W Utah 40 Indiana 48 0
Pac-12 L Colorado 17 Oklahoma State 29 -1
Pac-12 W Stanford 21 North Carolina 22 0
Pac-12 L Washington 6 Alabama 1 0
Pac-12 W USC 8 Penn State 12 0

Totals

ACC +3
Big 12 +2
SEC +2
Big 10 -1
Pac-12 -2

The ACC leads the way at +3, with the Big 12 and SEC both at +2. Both the Big 10 and the Pac-12 lost more games than expected. This is the second year the Pac-12 has turned in a -2 bowl performance.

As with last year, there’s no great discovery here. Based on two years worth of data, you might say that the Big 12, SEC and ACC are proving that they hold their own in cross-conference matchups. The Big 10 has had one negative year and one positive year. Maybe the Pac-12 is a bit overrated.

But again, these are small sample sets. Then again, the entire college football season is a small sample set. Doesn’t prevent the talking heads from drawing definitive conclusions from it.